Final moisture content of kiln-dried lumber is extremely critical to ensure optimal performance of the lumber in its end-use. Lumber that is too wet (under-dried) is prone to mold growth that can significantly compromise the lumber's strength, durability, and appearance. Under-dried lumber will also experience shrinkage as it dries to equilibrium, resulting in dimensional problems. Lumber that is too dry, or over-dried, will tend to warp and crack, also causing dimensional problems and rendering it less useful in most applications. Over-drying also results in lost productivity, and increased energy costs.
Both under drying and over drying will significantly reduce the desirability and market value of the lumber. For these reasons, in-situ monitoring of kiln dried lumber is highly advantageous.
It is established in prior art that it is possible to position steel plates spaced apart in a lumber stack, so that an electrical signal can be applied while drying of the lumber is in progress. The capacitance response between the plates can then be used as an indicator of moisture content, since the main dipolar constituent between the plates is the water in the lumber. Prior art systems of this type have been commercially available for two decades, from a variety of vendors. Such prior art systems (e.g., by the manufacturers Wagner, Wellons, and Accudry) have been described in significant detail in various public disclosures, including the following U.S. Patent Nos.: U.S. Pat. No. 4,389,578 by Wagner; U.S. Pat. No. 4,580,233 by Parker, et. al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,703,847 by Venter et. al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,989,678 by Venter et. al. each of which is fully incorporated herein by reference. Additionally, the following U.S. patent Nos. are fully incorporated herein by reference: U.S. Pat. No. 3,807,055 by Kraxberger; U.S. Pat. No. 4,107,599 by Preikschat; U.S. Pat. No. 6,124,584 by Blaker et. al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,281,801 by Cherry et. al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,784,671 by Steele, et. al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,784,672 by Steele, et. al.; U.S. Pat. No. 7,068,050 by Steele; U.S. Pat. No. 7,068,051 by Anderson; and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2004/0187341 by Studd, et. al. is also fully incorporated herein by reference.
Such prior art systems use electrical metering devices to measure the moisture content of lumber as it dries in a kiln. In most (if not all) cases, these electrical metering arrangements involve placement of steel plates in the lumber to form a capacitor. The various systems then employ some form of cabling to carry the electrical signal from the plates back to such a metering device. The metering device measures the electrical capacitance of the circuit formed by the steel plates and the lumber. The capacitance is closely related to the moisture content in the lumber, so the metering device output can be appropriately scaled to read out in terms of moisture content. Typically the meter provides the capacitance values from the plates to either a PC (i.e., personal computer) or a PLC-based controller (i.e., programmable logic controller). The transform from capacitance to moisture content is performed either in the meter or in the PLC/PC, and the moisture content values are then used by a kiln controller (a separate control system) to identify when no further drying of the lumber is desired.
Typically, prior art systems include multiple metering devices (each also referred to herein as a capacitive meter, or evaluator) mounted on either the kiln interior or the kiln exterior. In this manner, the electrical signals to and from the steel plates, inserted in the kiln stacks (i.e., lumber stacks within the kiln), travel only a very short distance, e.g., less than 50 linear feet via carefully isolated conductive wires.
The placement of the metering devices close to the kiln stack is primarily due to difficulties with calibration of the signals from the capacitor plates to such a metering device. In particular, the wiring (also referred to as cabling herein) from the capacitor plates to the metering device is a significant design issue in establishing a reliable and accurate metering circuit. For example, numerous issues must be considered in the design of the cabling, including the following:                The cables must be electrically insulated or isolated from all potential electrical grounds.        The cabling must be corrosion resistant.        The cabling must be capable of dealing with extremes in temperature, typically from as low as −60 F up to 250 F.        The cabling must be mechanically robust and able to survive rough handling.        The cabling must be resistant to electrical noise.        The metering equipment must be calibrated to effectively remove signal losses inherent to the cabling from the capacitance measurements output by the metering equipment. In other words, all cabling will have losses of some sort that will appear to the metering equipment as an electrical load. However, it is desirable to have a calibration method that is able to compensate for the cabling losses such that the meter only outputs data indicative of the capacitance of the plates (corresponding to lumber moisture content), and not losses from the cables themselves.        
Most prior art kiln moisture measurement systems attempt to address the calibration issue by minimizing the length of the cable length to the metering device. As indicated above, the metering devices are typically mounted on the exterior of the kiln, and as close as possible to the points where the moisture measurements are taken. Thus, by keeping the length of the cable short, the signal losses in the cable are reduced, and most of the cable signal can be attributed to the capacitance of the plates. Additionally, the relatively small losses incurred can be adjusted out with empirical tuning and zeroing of the circuits to normalize their response, as one skilled in the art will understand.
However, locating the meters on the kiln exterior makes them susceptible to weather conditions, which can be extraordinarily harsh. Many North American kilns are located in the Northern U.S. and Canada where temperatures are extremely low in the winter. Kilns vent a high amount of moisture, which turns to ice on the kiln exterior. In some cases, the high weight of ice on the meter is enough to cause structural damage to the meter. Meters are sealed, but the sealant is not foolproof and in some cases the ever-present moisture in the kiln-environment can get inside the meter, shorting it out. Thus, the reduced lifetime and reliability of the meters is a serious shortcoming in the prior art systems.
Ancillary problems also result from prior art cabling approaches. In particular, prior art calibration methods are only well suited to very simple wiring methods, such as a bare stranded wire or an insulated stranded wire, and with very short cable lengths. Moreover, when non-insulated cables are used in a kiln, the cables are kept electrically isolated via insulating standoffs. That is, for each cable, there is an electrically isolated swing-arm for supporting the cable in a tensioned state between a capacitor plate and a meter. However, electrically isolated standoffs and their cables can be awkward to kiln workers to manipulate, and falling lumber in the kiln can cause the non-insulated cables to short circuit.
Moreover, both non-insulated stranded wire and insulated stranded wire are susceptible to electrical noise which can further compromise the validity of the capacitance signal. Additionally, although coaxial cable is far more resistant to electrical noise than non-insulated stranded wire and stranded wire and communicates a superior signal (e.g., a higher signal to noise ratio), the use of coaxial cable can be difficult for prior art kiln moisture monitoring systems in that there are high capacitance levels generated in coaxial cable that can not be easily removed by the simple prior art calibration methods.
In summary, the above described prior art systems for drying lumber results in a variety of problems:                1. Short circuiting of the wiring is difficult to prevent. Since the wires are non-insulated, the wires must be kept electrically isolated via a series of insulated standoffs installed in the kiln interior.        2. Installation of a meter or evaluator can be problematic. Since the meter must be installed on the kiln exterior, and since kilns are often stacked together with limited external wall space, it may be necessary in some cases to install the meters on the kiln roof. This is potentially hazardous for electricians and makes servicing the meters very difficult. Moreover, the difficulty of installation results in high installation labor cost as well as excessive kiln down-time when such a prior art kiln moisture monitoring system is installed.        3. The location of the meters on the kiln exterior makes them susceptible to weather conditions, which can be extraordinarily harsh. Moreover, kilns vent a high amount of moisture, which can turn to ice on the kiln exterior. In some cases, the high weight of ice on the meter is enough to cause structural damage to a meter. Meters are sealed, but the sealant is not foolproof and in some cases the ever-present moisture in the kiln-environment can get inside the meter, shorting it out.        4. In order to prevent the non-insulated wires from coming into contact with each other, a tensioning system on a swing arm is required. This swing arm can become problematic in the kiln, and can be broken off by falling boards or equipment. It can also be electrically shorted by a variety of sources, including chain falls, cables, other wiring, etc.        5. The use of standard wiring makes the system susceptible to electrical noise, which is generated by the large equipment motors in use, as well as more typical sources such as fluorescent lighting.        6. Accurate and reliable calibration in the prior art monitoring/controlling systems can be difficult. In particular, such prior art calibration requires careful correction of the capacitance reading at the end of the wire leading from the meter to the plates.        
For all the aforementioned reasons, it is more advantageous to install the metering equipment in a centralized, environmentally-controlled equipment space, such as a control room, wherein humidity, moisture, and ice is prevented from damaging the electronics in the metering equipment. Further, it is advantageous to run the wiring with insulated coaxial cable rather than with standard stranded wire since coaxial cable offers superior noise rejection and a high degree of resistance to electrical faults, such as an inadvertently grounded cable. Moreover, use of these insulated coaxial cables makes it unnecessary to mount the cabling on complicated swing arms that are susceptible to breakage and electrical faults. These advantages are provided by the kiln moisture monitoring system disclosed hereinbelow.
Description of Terms
                Meter: A set of electronics (and associated software and/or firmware) used to measure the capacitance (or other electrical properties, e.g., resistance, admittance, reactance, impedance, etc.) in a kiln lumber stack, and from such measurements, determine the moisture content of the lumber stack being dried in the kiln. The set of electronics typically includes a signal generator that excites a pair of capacitor plates, a set of amplifiers that measure the excitation and the response voltages from the capacitor plates, a comparator that evaluates the phase and amplitude of the voltage responses from the capacitor plates, a demodulation component that converts the electrical data to capacitance (more generally, impedance) and finally to moisture content in the lumber being dried, and a power supply circuit that supplies power to the aforementioned circuit components. In the case of prior art systems, such electronics typically includes an electronics device (for receiving lumber capacitance measurements) installed on the kiln exterior or kiln interior, near the portions of the lumber from which the capacitance measurements are taken. In at least one preferred embodiment of the present disclosure, the meter is located in a centralized location in an environmentally controlled room.        Metering Point: The lumber between a pair of capacitor plates from which capacitance measurements are obtained.        Channel: A channel refers to the a pair of plates forming a capacitor within a kiln lumber stack, and the cabling for communicating, to a meter, capacitance readings generated by the pair of plates. Typically, most kilns for drying lumber employ 8 channels (i.e., 8 pairs of capacitor plates) per lumber stack in a kiln, wherein each pair measures the capacitance of the drying lumber at a different localized area within the lumber stack. In the case of prior art systems, a meter located on the exterior of the kiln normally serves 1 or 2 channels. Therefore with a prior art system, 4 to 8 meters are required to serve a single kiln with 8 metering points. In the case of the present novel disclosure, the meter, located in a control room, may be coupled with a multiplexer thereby allowing the meter to serve up to 40 such channels. Therefore in the present novel disclosure, a single meter can serve up to 5 kilns, each with 8 metering points (i.e., eight capacitor plate pairs).        Terminal Impedance: The ratio of complex voltage to complex current at the input terminals of an amplifier.        